


Farewell

by Phoenixflames12



Category: Aubrey-Maturin Series - Patrick O'Brian
Genre: Book 8: The Ionian Mission, Book 9: Treason's Harbour, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-13 03:16:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18932296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenixflames12/pseuds/Phoenixflames12
Summary: Promoted to commander and thoroughly depressed at not having a ship to command, Tom Pullings returns to Portsmouth to await a ship and reflects on the wife and son whom he has left behind.





	Farewell

**Author's Note:**

> Set somewhere between the end of the Ionian Mission and Treason's Harbour

They walk Portsmouth’s streets holding hands, the tumbled voices of sailors spilling out of half open tavern doors. The male voices are an indistinguishable chorus behind them, the clouds above their heads thick and grey with the promise of rain.

 

_Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies._

_Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain._

_For we’ve received orders to sail to old England,_

_But we hope in a short time to see you again._

 

Her hands are light in his, her face soft and pale in the gathering gloom, young and wide-eyed as she takes it all in.

 

He hadn’t wanted her to come.

 

He had wanted his last thoughts of her to be safe in the cottage in the New Forest, with the birch grove spilling out above the beams of their son’s bedroom and the creeping roses adorning the weathered stone.

 

Not here.

 

Not in Portsmouth.

 

Not standing at the edge of the quay, watching as the barges that are rowed in by men from another life pull out across the squalling, grey-green sea and bear him away to another life.

 

Not nursing the ghost of a final kiss, a final glimpse of him on deck as his ship weighed anchor and he let her courses fly, a final, whispered promise that he will return beating against her lips. That he will see their son into school for a short time before Gilbert, God willing follows his father into the navy as a midshipman.

 

‘What is it?’

 

He has stopped without meaning to, his eyes fixed on the _Surprise_ lying head to wind,his chest tightening at the sight of her topsails perfectly reefed with Mowett’s customary precision against the gusting breeze.

 

Constance’s hand tightens against his arm, the warmth of her skin flooding through the walked wool of his pea jacket and for the first time since they had descended the steps of the stage-coach, he turns to look at her.

 

Bright, hazel eyes gleam out of the gloom, set high in a pale face framed by wisps of chestnut coloured curls.

 

A bonnie face.

 

A country face, one that he had fallen in love with in the candlelit shadows of a country ball in Woodgreen, before his first commission as a lieutenant had been sent down and he had been ordered away to Portsmouth.

 

Her father, a respected, affluent country parson had not wanted her to marry him, he had known that much- a naval officer without any distinguishments to his name, living on half pay in a tithed cottage at the bottom of the grounds of Braemor Manor was not the man that he would have wanted for his eldest daughter.  

 

Her nose is pert and red with cold, her cheeks that are shielded by the rim of her bonnet, flushed with the chill of the westerly blowing off the sea.

 

‘It’s nothing. Nothing for you to trouble yourself with,’ he murmurs, the lie grey and dry on his tongue.

 

‘Nothing. _Really._ ’ She raises an eyebrow at him, searching his face, committing him to memory.

 

He can feel her eyes lingering on the scar that reaches across his forehead and ran down the line of his nose, her mittened hands reaching up to cup his cheeks, lightly brushing against the faded pull of blood on skin, her eyes brimming over with love and worry.

 

_And suddenly he remembers the day that he had returned home, his face still throbbing from Dr Maturin’s needle, still slightly unsteady on his feet from the worst days of fever. His body had ached with new bruises from being tossed like a cork in a barrel in his berth on the return voyage in a homeward bound packet that Maturin and Jack had transferred him at Gibraltar when he was strong enough to walk unaided,  had been battered still further by the two day journey in the stagecoach that passed at the bottom of the estate._

_Remembers the way that she had hovered in the doorway to the cottage, love and worry and unsurity playing across her face like ripples across a pond._

_Remembers the way that Gilbert, the son that he barely knows and yet wants so badly to know, had peered at him from behind his mother’s skirts, his hazel eyes that are flecked with gold and look so much like Constance, travelling from his face to the travel stained cloak and the drawstring sack slung at his feet, widening at the glint of the golden epaulette that Tom had risked so much for gleaming on his shoulder._

_His son had filled out since he had seen him last._

_The last vestiges of babyhood that Tom remembers from his last time on shore leave had been slowly chipped and chiselled away until a square-chinned, lean faced boy with high cheekbones and a smattering of summer freckles stares back at him._

_A boy that he does not know and wishes that he did._

_‘Mother? Who… Who’s that man?’_

_And Constance had drawn their son to face his father, the boy’s eyes darting away from him to fix themselves on the known safety of his mother, her hands resting lightly on his shoulders._

_‘This is your Father, Gilbert. The one that we pray for, remember?’_

_A small nod and then, almost as if he remembers himself, he had moved away from Constance and given Tom a tiny imitation of a leg._

_‘Pleased to make your acquaintance sir.’_

_The words had sounded stiff and formal, learnt by rote and memorised for this moment and Tom had felt his heart ache at the sight of it._

_Slowly, he had squatted down to the boy’s height and nodded his agreement, one hand reaching slowly to rest itself on his son’s shoulder._

_‘And I you, Gilbert.’ His voice is a husky breath caught deep in his throat, something that could be a sob strangling against the words, his eyes flicking up to catch his wife’s gaze. She had replied with a too-quick smile, sparks of silver pooling in her eyes._

‘ _And I you.’_

 

* * *

 

The wind has picked up since they left the comfortable fug of travellers and sailors in the tavern, sharply changing course so that it cuts across the swell, whipping up white flecked waves against the wet stone wall in its’ wake.

 

Overhead, the clouds are boiling into darkening thunderheads, the last vestiges of the sun’s weak, white light slashed against the sky.

 

Beside him, Constance shivers and on impulse he draws her closer, reaching to press a soft, chaste kiss against the cool chill of her cheek, the fine boned weight of her shoulder blades pressing comfortably against his chest.

 

The weight of her bones pressing through the confines of heavy brocade is a comfort, a familiarity that he has held onto ever since he had begun his return home.  She is as familiar to him as his own soul and that, Dr Maturin had said, on the morning of his departure, was supposed to help.

 

Overhead, a gull careers wildly through the billowing darkness of the clouds and dives; a sudden, brilliant flash of white lighting up the sky.

 

‘There’s something’s troubling you, isn’t there?’

 

Slowly, she turns to face him, her eyes betraying everything that her heart cannot and for the first time since they arrived in Portsmouth, he wishes that Gilbert were here.

 

Wishes that there could be something to distract him from the darkening thoughts that keep trying to crowd the corners of his brain.

 

Something that will stop the nagging, persistant voice that crowds behind his eyes and blurs his vision so that his beloved _Surprise_ becomes little more than a mess of  black lines and arrows against a rolling, storm tossed sky, whispering over and over again that this waiting is futile, that he is worthless, that he will never get another command and will be walking to the admiralty waiting for the news of a ship that will never come until his dying day from taking over his every waking thought.

 

‘It’s…’

 

The word ‘nothing’- cold, dismissive, devoid of feeling- dies on his tongue.

 

But it is not nothing.

 

It is the sight of Mowett, one of his oldest and closest friends, filling his place, waving from the quarterdeck with the Captain and all of his old shipmates as he lets the courses fly out and the anchor is weighed, the ship and the crew that he owes so much to gliding beautifully out into their new adventure without him.

 

It is Gilbert growing up too quickly, his bones bending and moulding to fit a body that he has seen so little of, his mind a brilliant fire that is alive with questions about the world and his place within it.  

 

A strangled sob catches in the back of his throat, choking his mouth until there are shards of salt stabbing behind his eyes.

 

Wordlessly, Constance presses closer, curling her hand tighter around his arm, her head resting against the walked wool of his pea jacket.

 

‘Oh, Tom,’ she murmurs, her voice barely a whisper. He does not want to look at her, does not think that he can look at her, but he knows from her small, choked swallow that she is trying to hold back tears.

 

‘Is there anything that I can do to make it better?’

 

In his heart of hearts, he knows that it is a futile question, but appreciates the sentiment.

 

No, my love.’ The words are choked and grey, lost in a kiss that he presses to her cheek that smarts with cold, his gaze fixed on the slowly fading spread of canvas that is the _Surprise’s_ main topgallant flowing freely in the brisk, rain washed breeze as it disappears into the blaze of the dying sunset, his lips quivering into a small, wet smile.

 

‘No. Just be here with me. Please?’

 

‘Of course,’ she murmurs after a moment of silence, where the only sounds are the cry of the gulls wheeling and diving about their heads and the salt-stained crash of waves against the quay.

 

‘Of course I will.’

 

 

* * *

 

_**Fin** _

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to read and review! 
> 
> Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x


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